Sam Blumenfeld

It is estimated that in the United States between 4 million and 8 million children are on Ritalin, the drug being used to change the behavior of children afflicted with a disease or condition called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD.

The eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull (I-jaf-jalla-jokull) volcano on April 14, 2010, is being compared to Krakatoa’s famous eruption on August 27, 1883 which had a great effect on weather patterns for the next few months. It seems that its Icelandic equivalent might have the same effect — creating a period of global cooling. This invalidates all of those computer models created by climate-change fanatics warning us of an earth becoming unbearably hot with oceans rising and covering all coastal cities. So Al Gore must be worried.

Jay Leno, in his amusing Jay Walking adventures, interviews young Americans whose appalling ignorance of history, geography and other areas of basic knowledge has become the subject of great hilarity. Many of them couldn't tell you who was buried in Grant's tomb.

The announcement about a year ago by the New York Times that it might close down the venerable Boston Globe, unless the paper could cut costs and begin to make money, came as a shock to many Bostonians. The Times bought the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion because it assumed that in an area with Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College and other schools of higher leaning, they would have lots of liberal readers and make lots of money. But this much-touted Athens of America, which prides itself on its intellectual history, has become, like the rest of America, a victim of our general literacy decline.

History is not taught very well in today's public schools, and that is why the history of the Democratic Party is totally unknown by the American voting public. Believe it or not, the Democratic Party was inspired by those Southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 who forced all of the other delegates to accept the institution of slavery as the price of their participation in the new government. That is why the Southern states were able to count each slave as three-fifths of a person in determining the number of representatives the state could send to Congress.

One of the reasons why so many Americans are confused about the large numbers being tossed around by our leaders in Washington these days is because of how poorly they were taught mathematics in the public schools. They find figures in the millions, billions, and trillions almost impossible to visualize as anything more than just strings of numbers. Most Americans can barely deal with thousands, let alone trillions.

Would you believe that Russia has become more anti-Marxist than the United States? Actually that isn’t hard to believe since the Russians suffered under Marxist-Communism for 70 abysmal years and have no desire to repeat it. But Americans are so ignorant of Marxism that they can’t even recognize it when it is being imposed on them by their Democratic political leaders. No Republican at the recent Summit dared call Obama, or Pelosi, or Reid socialists.

The question we ask is important. For humanism is the world view of our educational leaders, of the textbooks they write, of the psychologists who counsel our youngsters on values, sex, and death. In short, it is the world view of the curricula used in the public schools. In fact, humanism forms the philosophical basis of what passes for teacher education in our state colleges and universities.

If you saw or heard President Obama’s opening remarks at the Republican Caucus meeting in Baltimore, you witnessed an expert leftist taking that one step backward in order to later take two steps forward. That’s straight out of Lenin’s communist strategy book. When you are faced with a strong opposition, you take a step back. And so, Obama sounded very conciliatory, urging Republicans to join with him in pushing legislation that both could agree on, particularly on matters of defense and veterans’ benefits.